


to the victor, the spoils

by howlingmoonrise (TheDarkStoryteller)



Category: Mulan (1998), Mulan - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Development, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Slow Build, Violence, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-09-19 18:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkStoryteller/pseuds/howlingmoonrise
Summary: AU. The events that lead Mulan to take her father's place went differently, leaving her to stay behind in the farm while Fa Zhu departs for war. Shan Yu's forces are not so easily predicted, however, and when their presence threatens the remaining members of the Fa family, one act of bravery is all it takes for Mulan to be taken along and become a warrior on her own right.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> so my other shan yu/mulan story was surprisingly well-received for such a weird rare-pair??? at the time i wrote _Warrior_ i had started writing this longfic for those two as well, based on my sudden revelation back then that shan yu was the only character in the movie to not have looked down on mulan in any way... but then i ended up forgetting about it in my wips folder. oops.
> 
> hope you guys like this one as well, though! feedback is extremely appreciated ;)
> 
> \--

There is a woman.

Shan Yu has never put much stock in Han women - cowering things, all the rage and passion and other things that made one  _alive_ beaten out of them, suppressed until they cannot even speak unless someone else prompts them to. He would like to say he despises them, just as he despises the ones that have made them so, but this is the truth: in his eyes, they do not exist.

Invisible things, worthless things, as good as flowers and vases and paintings. This empire has bred them to have very little purpose beyond childbearing and decoration. They do not exist.  _They do not exist_.

But, there is a  _woman_.

She stands defiant, teeth bared in a snarl as she stands between one of his men and a child too young for war. "You won't take her," she defies, and does not yield when his man laughs.

He cannot help but watch.

"Who's going to stop me, little lady?" The soldier licks at his teeth, leering. "You?"

" _Mulan_ ," another woman whispers, clearly terrified. She tugs at the  _woman_ , at the silks adorning her, trying to pull her back without calling too much attention to herself. " _Don't._ "

The  _woman_ frees herself from the other's grasp, never looking away. "If you're coward enough to try."

But she's now aware of her position, awoken from her bravery by the desperation in the other's voice. Aware of how his soldiers are staring, aware of the tears struggling not to spill on the face of the other woman - perhaps her mother? - aware of how she's a tiny slip of a girl, untrained for nothing beyond pouring tea and painting her face to please their men, aware of the danger she's putting all of them in. Her eyes flicker.

She hesitates.

His man does not.

He slaps her away with the back of his hand, sending her flying against a table with wares to sell. There's hairpins and colourful sashes of fabric and all kinds of other pretty, useless things that the Han people seem to enjoy so much they'd let their guard down for the opportunity to buy; his troops had planned the attack for this occasion exactly. There are no longer any men in this village, all taken for combat near the borders, near that disgraceful wall their cowardly emperor had built in his fear.

They had not imagined his forces had reached this far, and it is just as Shan Yu had predicted. How very shameful of them.

" _Mulan!_ " the woman shouts, but she, too, is cowardly - she does not dare approach.

The Han people are all cowards, and the wide circle that opens when his man reaches to grab the girl by the hair is all the proof he needs. Shan Yu has seen all he needs to see, snarling as he gathers his personal guard to move on from this ridiculous place.

A howl of agony comes from behind him.

It is not from the girl.

Blood on the ground, blood on delicate hands with orchid-soft fingers, splattering ruby-red droplets everywhere like jewels from the emperor's treasure, and all he hears is this:  _warrior, warrior, warrior_. She is a mighty thing, a wildcat cub struggling to stand up on weak legs, letting blood dribble from her split lip in a way that coats her teeth in red. The blood on the ground, however, isn't hers. His soldier is screaming, holding onto his face and batting wildly at anyone foolish enough to come close; the rest of the villagers are pale and terrified, even more so than before.

"Enough." One word. The chaos stops.

The  _woman_  spits her bloody saliva on the ground, viscous and pink against the dirt, and for once Shan Yu is hiding his pleasure rather than the opposite.

His dismount from his horse is slow, enough to buy him a few more moments of thoughtfulness; his personal guard knows not to interfere when it is so. But the other man is not one of his elite warriors - he is foolish, whimpering when told to be quiet, and Shan Yu can do nothing but raise an eyebrow at the meticulously crafted hair pin stuck into his eyeball when his hand moves enough to grant a glimpse at it.

The  _woman_ sways. Mulan, he thinks they had called her, and it is not a Hun name but it is much like her - strong, but not unyielding, soft enough to be deceitful. He takes three measured steps in her direction: one, and the villagers flinch back; two, and the child she had protected runs off; three, and there is no one there to hold her steady when she stumbles.

His hands are rough, but he does not let her fall. She is fearful, just like the others, and weak, and soft - there is no muscle tested underneath his hands, no hardness of steel beneath the fabric, no practised courage of a soldier in the way she stands - but there is  _something_ there. He can see it. From his shoulder, Hayabusa screeches her loud agreement, making the girl flick her eyes warily towards the falcon before she turns them back wide to meet his.

"You will tell me your name," he drawls, a pleasant smirk in place. "Or I shall only call you 'little Han woman' for as long as you shall live."

Her eyes are metal-cold, metal-harsh, metal-unforgiving. "I am Fa Mulan."

He laughs.

It is not a cheerful sound, and it has been crafted not to be. It's a laugh honed through years of battles and plans, of blood on his sword and of sweat on his horse's back; it is meant to frighten. There is no sound on this village beyond the whimpering of his wounded soldier, and his laughter.

His soldiers know to fear what comes next.

"Fa Mulan," he sneers. There is no forgiveness in his voice. "You have defied my men, and as such you have defied me."

There is a struggle in her gaze, one he has seen too many times in soldiers with far less courage than her. To drop her eyes and plead for mercy, to beg for her family to be spared, or to die with the kind of honor usually reserved only to men?

"Please." Another woman steps forward, silver-haired and hobbling on knobby limbs. "She forgets herself. Please, spare her."

"Are you volunteering in her place, then?" He does not bother to hide his cruel smirk. "She does not seem to be the only one to forget herself."

The old woman hesitates. "If it will spare her-"

"Grandmother,  _no!_ " Fa Mulan tries to jerk herself out of his grasp, to throw herself once more in the path of someone's sword. She then turns seething eyes upon him when he holds her in place instead of letting go, hands tight enough to bruise when she struggles. "Do you kill all innocents this easily? Is your honor threatened by so little?"

"Do tell me, Fa Mulan." He leans in close, bending down so there is no escaping his gaze. Her breath comes fast, in short, scared little gasps that have him wondering at how someone can be so brave and so terrified all at once. "Will you hide your eyes when I kill your family for your crimes? Will you bend to your knees and beg for them, knowing I am not a merciful man?"

Her upper lip curls, showing teeth stained with pink. "There is no point to begging if you will kill us anyway."

For a moment, there is nothing but the scent of her blood. His smirk widens, shifting into a fully animalistic grin. Lesser men have cowered.

 _She_  does not.

"I can be merciful, Fa Mulan." Her nostrils flare at his words. Afraid, so afraid of him like all wise men, but she does not look away. What a brave little Han, what a jewel he's found in this ridiculous excuse for a village. "So tell me: what are you willing to do to save your family?"

"If you give me your word?" Fa Mulan raises her head, meeting his gaze. "Whatever I must."

He hums in ponderation, studying her features - as if he had not decided this, as if he had not planned for this since the moment he saw her with defiance in her eyes and blood on her hands when no one else would step forth and help.

Shan Yu is extremely satisfied. "Very well. Prepare your things; we'll be leaving soon."

He drops her, letting gravity and the weakness of her limbs do the job of putting her on the ground. She splutters, coughing as the air is forced from her lungs by the impact.

" _We?_ " she asks, disbelieving.

Shan Yu smiles.

It is not nice. Like his laugh, it's not meant to be.

Hayabusa takes flight when he raises his hand, signalling to his troops that this decision is final. "Patch up my soldier before you say your goodbyes, Fa Mulan. You will be coming with us."

He does not bother to look back.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've had this chapter written for like... a year before i started posting this damned thing, but i kept forgetting to upload it oops. i'm not used to multichapter fics anymore OTL
> 
> thank you so much for all the lovely comments!! i hope you guys enjoy this one as well, and feedback is always welcome~

He is a Hun.

Fa Mulan grits her teeth, tasting blood as she watches their leader walk away from her, giving the order lightly, fleetingly, as if he's not uprooting her full life and bringing her into a new one filled with horrors she cannot even begin to imagine.  _Shan Yu_  - that is his name, at least from what she has heard from the terrified whispers all around her - has brought terror to the Empire. He has slain countless villages, taking victims in numbers far beyond the amount of moments she has lived through; he has defeated entire armies on his own.

She cannot help but fear that amongst such armies had been her father.

He had left before she could do anything about it, urged on to take his horse and sword and armour and trade them for their tears and sorrows in their place.  _Fa Zhou_ , the great soldier, the war hero, respected by all for his military prowess but not for his worth as a father. Fa Mulan has wept bitterly over his absence.

Fa Mulan has very little to lose, now.

She cannot bring herself to meet the eyes of her mother, or her grandmother, or of any of the villagers, knowing what they are seeing: someone without honor. Someone who spoke out of place, who might have brought death upon them all if things had gone differently, someone who has blood covering her hands and teeth and the front of her  _hanfu_  like a child who has spilt their soup.

_Dishonored_ , they will call her, but her bitterness is too deep to listen.

"Mulan."

Grandmother reaches for her. Her hands move to grasp for Mulan's bloody ones, uncaring of the mess, and Mulan decides that she will not stain her family any further.

"No," she says, and pulls her own hands away; she refuses to meet her gaze. Fa Li does not attempt to gaze at her, eyes staring to the ground and to the left, though her expression is worried. Mulan feels her throat dry. "This is my burden to bear. I made that choice."

"You made no choice to go, child," Fa Li says softly. "We can hide you, say you slipped away."

But she cannot; all three of them know this. Mulan has grown up with tales of her father and war, of spoils and sword and slaughter when no one thought she was listening, and she knows that leaving will sign a death sentence for her family, and the rest of the village after them. The Empire might forgive them if she was disinherited, erased from her family's line and memory.

The Huns will not.

She closes her eyes, sways on the spot. Her voice is not as strong as she'd like it to be. "It's best if you forget me."

"You are the daughter of your father, Mulan." Fa Li reaches forward, meeting her gaze one last time. "We cannot forget you."

There are no tears. Not with the soldiers still around.

No tears. No weakness. No pain.

"We will get your things," Fa Li promises. "Do as they bid and patch up the Hun, before they punish you further. And be careful, child."

Her chin drops in a pretense of a nod.

Mulan cannot avoid Grandmother's hands, this time. She presses something living to them, something that twitches in her hand, and something else that is hard yet delicate. The cricket. The haircomb. Reminders of that day that seems like a dream, now, at the matchmaker's, when Mulan had thought it had been the worst thing that could happen in her whole life. When her father had left for war - and today, when  _she'll_ be forced to go, too - shame had covered such a stupid thought.

But there is something about Grandmother Fa's countenance that makes Mulan lean forward before she can think about it, and Grandmother brings her mouth close to her ear in return: a secret.

"I will pray to the ancestors for you," she whispers. "For the fiercest and mightiest guardian. I have faith in you, Mulan. You will live through this, and find your way to happiness."

Mulan bows her head, letting her hair hide the tears that threaten to fall.

_No tears where they can see_ , she promises herself.  _No tears._

It is gruesome.

She had done it herself, with her bloody hands and her bloody face, under the orders of some instinct she does not want to understand. Fa Mulan is not a soldier, or a warrior, or the kind of person that can stab into someone's eyeball with a hairpin without regret. Fa Mulan is a graceful, delicate, dutiful daughter who strives only to bring honor to her family.

_Maybe if I repeat it enough times, it'll become true._ She has the hysterical urge to laugh.

There is no saving the eye, and she has to run for the edge of the house and vomit hot, acidic bile at the suctioning sound the hairpin makes when they slide it off.  _I'm sorry_ , she wants to beg, to cry.  _I did not mean it. I did not want it_. But that, too, is a lie.

Mulan does not know what that makes of her.

She bandages the Hun soldier - blissfully unconscious, blissfully unaware that it is her tending to his wounds with badly-washed hands and eyes struggling to contain useless tears - as best as she can under the doctor's instructions. Neither of them will risk Shan Yu knowing it wasn't her doing it as he ordered, but she doesn't know how to do it on her own and the doctor will not let the village suffer for her incompetence, no matter how much he might dislike her. The pin is placed on the table, deceitfully innocent after being removed and cleaned. She does not know why they bother.

It would have been a lovely thing. Father might have bought it for her or for Mother if he had seen it, with its delicate colours and the plum blossom beads shining in the light; perhaps to wear for a wedding. Perhaps for  _her_ wedding.

That, too, will never happen now.

Mulan tells herself that it is not something to be thankful for.

Grandmother comes to fetch her when she's done, ignoring the jeers from the other Hun soldiers watching. "A bath," she says, and her voice has regained some strength. "And then we'll eat. You need to gather your strength, dear one."

She lets Grandmother guide her, feeling her heart set to cold stone. She will bathe. She will feed. She will pray to the ancestors, and to all those that might be listening, all those that would offer her aid. Her reflection does not show her true self, nor the hopeful bride, nor the dutiful daughter - none of the things she ever begged it to show - but within its gaze she finds her answer.

Fa Mulan lights a stick of incense, and prays not for herself, but for her family.  _Protection. Honor. Courage. Comfort._ All the things she could never give them, and that she sorely wishes she could. Mulan trades her silks for riding clothes, the offering of an apple for determination, and her jade beads for a knife. The great stone dragon in their yard watches and judges as she makes her way past it, and she cannot tell what it decides. But she knows  _her_ decision.

_No more tears._

Fa Mulan is the last of her line. There is no place for tears in her eyes.


End file.
